The Crucible of the Dragon God (17 page)

With a grunt of exertion she flung herself across the dropshaft plate, whipping a small metal bar from her equipment belt and jamming it between the chamber bolts before they could slam shut. The collision of metal on metal vibrated the whole plate and almost took Kali's hand off, but at least it had prevented the reverse sequence going any further. But it was not the only one. Kali back-flipped, grabbing another metal cylinder from her belt and jammed it into the second chamber feed before sighing in relief. That should have been that but Kali's interfering with the delicate balance of the locks and chambers had clearly knocked the whole mechanism out of kilter. She looked around in disbelief as chambers and punchbolts began to engage and disengage themselves in no particular order and with ever increasing speed.

Dammit
.
There
had
to be an order to it somewhere
.

As she leapt around blocking or freeing those bolts that
looked
as if they should go this way or that, Kali tried to visualise the underworkings of the dropshaft plate. Rapid calculation after rapid calculation followed, Kali flinging herself here and there like something possessed, and she was beginning to think that she'd be doing this until she dropped dead of exhaustion when there was a sudden heavy clank from beneath her.

The plate had just released itself.

It began to rise.

There was only one problem. If Kali were to keep it open she had to remain in the position she was in, a kind of crooked spreadeagle with the sole of her left foot jamming one punchbolt, the calf of her right leg another, one hand pushing upward to block yet another, and a painfully positioned elbow blocking the last. She looked as if she were posing for some strange art class.

The plate had risen fully now, and Kali with it, and while she could not see what was beneath it, she
could
smell it. A dank, briny mouldiness that was redolent of the rot of ages. It made her want to gag. She didn't, though, because her mind was taken off the desire by a prolonged and bass rumble that originated somewhere from within wherever the opened plate led.

Or at least she thought that was where it came from. It was difficult to tell because The Mole was nearing her now, the sound of its engines drowning out everything around it. And all Kali could do was wait until it fully arrived. She was glad that she had incapacitated the guards in the watchtower because this, frankly, was embarrassing.

The Mole manoeuvred into position beside her and, after a second, there was the hiss of its opening hatch. A tall, wiry, moustachioed and ear-ringed figure eased itself out of the hatch, took in Kali's predicament with an amused glance, and then stroked his moustache.

"I see you are enjoying yourself," Aldrededor observed.

"Not... quite... the... words... I'd... have... chosen," Kali gasped as she strained to keep the punchbolts in place. "Do you think, maybe, you could give me a hand here?"

Aldrededor applauded softly.

"
Aldrededor!
"

The ex-pirate smiled again, sighed, and began to look around for suitable pieces of rock or detritus with which he could jam the spaces Kali's appendages currently occupied.

"Is it any wonder," he commented as he worked, "that we at the Flagons worry about you all the time? Why is it that you get yourself into these ridiculous situations?"

"I have a knack for it."

"Clearly. Tell me - just what would you have done had we not come along?"

"
I don't know
," Kali said through clenched teeth. It took a second for what Aldrededor had said to penetrate. "Hang on. What do you mean, 'we'?"

"There," Aldrededor said, fitting the last block into place. "I believe you can climb down now."

"Thanks.
Ahhh
.
Ooohh
. Aldrededor, what do you mean, 'we'?" She repeated before becoming distracted as what appeared to be a thick cloud of brown fog roiled from The Mole's cabin.

A second later, it happened again, and Kali moved to the door, coughing as she was engulfed in a cloud of cloying reekingness.

Oh no
, she thought, and stepped back as something tall and thin
articulated
itself, in the manner of a brackan, from the inside of the cabin and stood, cheroot in mouth, arms folded.

"Dolorosa?"

"Of coursa Dolorosa! Who you expecta, thatta red-headed tart, the Annoying Lord?"

"Anointed," Kali corrected, absently. "Dolorosa, what in the hells are you doing here?"

"Our land is plagued by man-eating
theengs
and you think I woulda let my 'usband make thisa journey alone?"

Kali stared at the aforementioned and Aldrededor shrugged, picking at a tooth.

"Who's looking after my pitsing pub?"

"Do notta worry. Horse issa behind the bar."

"
Horse
!?"

"Hah! I havva her! Eet ees a leetle joke. No, thatta reprobate Deadnettle, he looka after the place. Notta that there are any customers. Nothing, and I mean
nothing
, comes near while the fat women dance."

"The Bellies are still dancing?"

"They havva leetle choice."

"True," Kali reflected. She paused for a second, looked at the two of them, and shook her head fondly. "Look, I appreciate you bringing The Mole, but I have to go now."

"Offa to save the world."

"Again," Kali sighed.

She patted them both on the shoulder and moved to the dwarven machine. She settled into the pilot's position but found her legs bent up against the control panel, as they had been when she had first found The Mole. Again, she tried to push the seat back but this time it would not go, blocked by some object. Kali leant around and found that Dolorosa was not the only unexpected extra to arrive with the dwarven machine. Something was jammed behind the seat. A small, wicker basket. Kali flipped the lid and stared inside. There were a number of bottles of flummox and two small mountains of slices of bread, layered in pairs, with filling between them. Kali prodded the uppermost layer of bread tentatively then pulled back with a grimace as a thick, brown substance slowly oozed from beneath it.

"What," Kali asked cautiously, "is this?"

Dolorosa looked surprised. "It issa beer anda butties for our trippa into the mountains."

The beer Kali didn't have a problem with, but it was these 'butty' things, and what was still oozing insidiously from inside them, that had disturbed her. She picked one of the creations up and it flopped under its own weight, plopping a lump of brown stuff onto her lap.

"Surprise stew butties?"

"Ovva course!" Dolorosa looked affronted. "Wassa the matter, eh? You havva gone offa my signatura
dish
while you havva been away?"

"No, no," Kali said quickly, having no wish to incur the old woman's wrath, especially by mentioning you couldn't
have
a signature dish if it was the only dish you ever made. The fact was, while she had nothing against surprise stew as such, she'd rather have eaten her own knees than the mess that was being presented to her now. That wasn't really the point though, was it? "Dolorosa. This isn't a picnic."

The woman stared at her, squinting her eyes, then turned to her husband and threw her hands in the air. "Pah! Now she thinks I amma some kind offa buffoon! A madda olda lady whose marbles havva rolled away, eh?"

Aldrededor curled his moustache and smiled, saying nothing, and Dolorosa span back to face Kali.

"Ovva course I know this issa no piccaneek! Eet ees going to be
very dangerous
. Alla the more reason to keepa uppa our strength, yes?"

Dolorosa seemed to entering full flow, so it was going to be useless to argue. "Well, yes, I suppose so, but -" Kali began and then faltered. Dolorosa had just said what she'd thought she'd said, hadn't she?
Our
strength. Yep, she'd definitely said
our
, as in 'we.'

"
Ohhoohhhooooo no
. If you think you're coming with me, you've got another think coming. This isn't a day trip into the country, old woman, it's the
Drakengrat Mountains
we're talking about."

"I thought itta wassa the Lost Canalsa of Turnitia first?"

"Those, too! And you can guarantee that they became
lost
for a reason. There's
always
a reason with these places. Deathtraps, monsters, insatiable, grasping
hairy
things that lurk in the dark..."

"I havva shared my bedaroom with Aldrededor for forty-five years, this issa
nurthing
."

Aldrededor blew her a kiss.

"What?" Kali said, looking at him. "Oh no, uugh, I don't want to know. The point is, it's what I do - and I do it
alone
. You could die down there."

"Anda we coulda die uppa here. Or havva you forgotten the k'nid?" She leaned in towards Kali and added: "Havva you forgotten that when you take thissa
machine
, we woulda havva to
walk
home to the
Flagons
? Howwa long do you thinka we'd survive outta there, hah?"

"What?"

Dammit!

In all the chaos of the past few days she
had
forgotten that. Her own trip here from Andon had been perilous to say the least, and she couldn't reasonably expect Dolorosa and Aldrededor to make a journey ten times that length. And neither could she leave them here, where Vossian patrols might find and detain them, or worse. Maybe they could camp just inside the entrance to the Lost Canals, she pondered briefly. But then remembered the deep roar she thought she had heard when she had first breached its gates. It might have been nothing - an acoustic trick of the waiting labyrinth - but then again...

Dammit!

"All right, all right! But the two of you do
everything
I say, understand? You keep quiet when I tell you and you keep your heads down when I tell you and -"

Aldrededor interrupted her. "Young lady. My wife and I have survived the Mirror Maelstrom of Meenos and the Seven Sirens of the Sarcrean Sea, we have stood fast in the path of ripper gales and laughed in the face of the Chadassa themselves -"

"Like a this -
hahahahaaaar!"
Dolorosa interjected.

"- we have sailed the acid surf, we have swum the shadowed waters, and we have rode the boiling waves of the north."

"Enough!" Kali said. She had to admit she sometimes forgot that these two had...
history
and, being reminded of it by them, she felt vaguely chastised. She couldn't help but worry nonetheless. Neither of them were any longer in their prime and, when it came down to it, they were family. She made no apologies for trying to keep them safe.

But what choice did she have?

"Aldrededor... Dolorosa?"

"Yes, Kali Hooper?"

"What say we get this show on the road?"

The pair released a satisfied sigh. "Yes, Kali Hooper."

Kali gunned the engines of The Mole as Dolorosa and Aldrededor clambered into the seats behind her, checking they were settled before she flicked the lever that closed the hatch. The loud and sibilant hiss as it sealed made what they were about to do seem all the more immediate. But Kali wasn't sure what was worse - the unknown region they were about to negotiate or the sudden overwhelming odour of garlic and piratical aftershave that pervaded The Mole's cabin.
This
was going to be a long journey.

Having become quite used to the dwarven machine's controls by now, Kali pushed forward the lever that set it into gear, and then another that turned it on its tracks until its nose pointed towards the open hatch. Then, without further hesitation, she urged the machine forward, swallowing slightly as its front dipped onto the slope that lay beneath the opening. Outside the small observation portholes, the ambient light turned from the azureness of above to a strange and somewhat eerie rippling green.

"So theesa canals, they are what?" Dolorosa queried. "Some kind ovva sewer?"

"Not a sewer," Kali said. "But, to be honest, I haven't a clue what they actually are. All I know is where they go. At least,
part
of where they go."

"Whicha beggas the question. If you avva thees 'Mole', why is it you didda not drill into them somewhere else, inna stead of using thees hatch? Somawhere less dangerous?"

That, Kali could answer, and did. The fact was, she had made one exploratory dig at the location of one of the canal's branches over a year before, but had hit a layer of
something
that had been as impenetrable as the dropshaft plates she had later discovered. Whatever the material was, it defied damage from all the tools in her possession and then some. She seriously doubted that even the dwarven drill bits would make much inroads without taking damage. No, the dropshafts were the only realistic way in - and now that she was actually
using
one of them she hoped that she might find some answers as to what the material was. Because if she knew that, it might give her more of a clue as to who it was had built the bloody canals in the first place. Speaking of which, The Mole was coming to the end of the access tunnel.

"Lady and gentleman," Kali said as she flicked on The Mole's headlights. "The Lost Canals of Turnitia."

Both Aldrededor and Dolorosa leaned forward to peer through the portholes, and gasped. Kali almost did the same. Only the fact that her brain was working overtime to process what she was seeing preventing her from doing so.

Because with the affair of the dwarven testing ground and then the entrance passage to this network, she was beginning to think that she'd had enough of tunnels to last her half a lifetime, but the fact was tunnels were not what she had got. Instead, ahead of The Mole, she found herself staring at an arched thoroughfare that was as large and as grandiose as the inside of a cathedral. What was even more awe inspiring was that this passage was only one of the canals. Beyond further dark arches, to their left and right, as far as they could see, were many more of them, routing away to Gods knew where beneath the surface of the peninsula.

"By all of the Gods," Aldrededor breathed. "I never thought I would see this place."

"You know it?"